Sheep
by silver-nightstorm
Summary: She was dead. He was in denial. All he could do was lie in his bed and count sheep as he tried to ignore her face.


The "Five Word Prompt" from Bittersweet x at the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges forum. My words were 'sheep', 'exhausted', 'mangled', 'abuse', and 'spatula'. The pairing was Sirius & Marlene.

My first Harry Potter fanfiction! Enjoy~!

**Sheep**

**By silver-nightstorm**

**Summary:** She was dead. He was in denial. All he could do was lie in his bed and count sheep as he tried to ignore her face.

XX

She had been in his class at Hogwarts. A Gryffindor, but surprisingly Ravenclaw-like in her decisions. Where Gryffindors were prone to charge into a situation headfirst, she, unlike the rest of her house, would stop and _think_. Many people, Prongs included, thought she was dense. But he saw her for what she really was; he thought she was bloody _brilliant_.

He sighed. Sleep would not come to him this night, no matter how exhausted he was. He carefully untangled himself from the thin sheets that lined his bed and stumbled out of the warm cocoon. Sweeping his hand across the side table, he fumbled with his wand and managed to cast a weak _lumos_. A frustrated groan sounded.

"The hell you doing?"

"Go to sleep, Prongs…"

Silently stealing across the floor, he carefully pried the door open and tried to sneak out. As he stepped out, his foot hit a floorboard that groaned.

"Stop all the bloody noise…" groaned another.

"Sorry, sorry…"

The door was slowly eased back shut with a lingering creak, and he stood outside, clad in his boxers, holding his wand, illuminating the dank hallway. He crept down the hall on his toes, flinching at the slightest noise. Easing himself carefully down the steps, he heaved a giant sigh of relief as he entered the brightly lit kitchen. A young red-headed woman stood by the stove, busily cooking away.

"You're up early."

"I never slept," he said. "What are you cooking at this ungodly hour, Molly?"

Molly Weasley, until recently Prewett, deftly twirled her wand, effectively setting a spatula to automatically flip pancakes and turned to see the young man who had just walked in.

"I'm cooking for all of you who just got back. I have to feed twenty-seven mouths this morning, and I cannot cook everything if I wake up like _you_ do and…"

"Twenty-eight."

Molly frowned, running her hands over her apron nervously. "What do you mean?" she asked quietly, looking away.

"Twenty-eight," he repeated firmly. "You. Forgot. One."

"I didn't forget anyone."

"Yes you did!" He was yelling now, he noticed mildly. When had he started to yell? "You forget her again!"

"I didn't forget her…" There were tears in Molly's eyes.

"You keep forgetting to make food for Marlene!" he shouted at her. Tears were racing down her cheeks now. He stopped, horrified. "I'm sorry I shouted," he whispered gently, running up and hugging her. "I didn't mean it, I'm not angry at you."

"Oh, Sirius!" Molly sobbed, throwing her arms around the young man – boy really, almost ten years her junior, in a _war_ – and squeezing him tight. "She's gone! She's gone Sirius! She isn't coming back!"

Sirius looked up at her, his brown eyes gentle, his black hair mussed from sleeping. "Don't worry about it, Molly," he smiled. "She's okay, she's just healing right now. But you still have to make her food or she won't get better."

"She can't get better!" She was the one screaming now. "She's dead. _Dead_, Sirius! Do you know what that means? No matter how much she eats, she _won't come back_!"

"No." Sirius was glaring at her now; he had pulled away from her grasp, his hands firmly holding onto her upper arms. "I. Saved. Her." He enunciated each word clearly and separately, shaking Molly slightly to the beat of his speech. "I held her mangled body in my arms, but _I brought her back_. I _know_ she's alive, she _has_ to be."

Molly cried more, shaking her head, her bright hair a halo around her. "No, Sirius. She's _dead_. A body can only take so much abuse before it breaks. She broke, Sirius. She was broken even when you brought her back. Nothing you did could have saved her. She was already gone."

Sirius shook his head, a lost look in his eyes. It had been like this for three months. Every night, he wouldn't be able to sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he would be haunted by her silky blonde hair, her innocent blue eyes, her infectious laughter, and he would jerk awake. He would stumble down the hallways of Headquarters and enter the kitchen. He would fall apart. And Molly would painstakingly attempt to put him back together.

But she could only do so a certain number of times. She knew the day would come when she _wouldn't_ be able to get him back together. As she hauled the dead weight of Sirius Black down the hallway, she cried harder and harder.

If only Marlene McKinnon could see the boy now. The girl would _never_ doubt his love again.

But she couldn't. She was dead. He was in denial. All he could do was lie in his bed and count sheep as he tried to ignore her face.

**XX**

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